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[MetalSlimeHunt]

It says more about the Emperor than anything. He made flexible superhumans and then intentionally hammered them into a small box of endless war when they're clearly capable of more. He treats them like they're still Thunder Warriors most of the time.

[nenjin]

That seems an extreme characterization.

Astartes' bodies don't just give up after 30 years or w/e. Emprah built them to last, which implies a certain level of autonomy and free will included in the package.

Thunder Warriors were designed as disposable soldiers who, if they were fortunate enough to live the duration of the conflicts the Emperor threw them in to, would eventually expire anyways. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, etc...

You could argue that wasn't intentional on the Emprah's part, that he merely hadn't refined his genetic science so they could be built to last....but every time you've met a Thunder Warrior in the fiction, it's clear they were not built to lead, rule or not kill stuff. He needed brutal shock troops operating in a battlezone of a known quality (Earth), who could quickly subjugate the entire planet and solidify his rule. Astartes, on the other hand, were built to cross the stars, face unknown challenges on a regular basis and operate autonomously from the Emperor who now had way more war than he could be present for. They also needed to be able to organize millions of troops, negotiate compliance and police worlds. Something the Thunder Warriors simply were never equipped to do.

So he may not treat the Astartes great, but they experience leagues more freedom and potential than the Thunder Warriors.

[Trekkin]

Remember how the Great Crusade evolved, though: the original plan was for the Emperor and the Primarchs alone to reconquer the galaxy 21-handedly. That had to be aborted when the Primarchs were lost and the Astartes built to replace them, and then the Emperor determined that they needed the Imperial Army as well -- in part to ameliorate the inevitable shortage of Astartes by providing soldiers for more mundane tasks, yes, but also to run things like heavy artillery and orbital bombardment and sieges and so forth which the Astartes weren't ideally suited to do. Then the splitting of the Army post-Heresy saw most of the Astartes' void capability shuffled into the Navy, leaving them with what are, in truth, gigantic interstellar APCs -- and the splitting of the Astartes into Chapters vastly exacerbated the manpower issues that made the Army necessary in the first place.

So no, the Astartes are not stupid or inflexible by design, but much of their physiology and armory was geared toward making fast frontal assaults as effective as possible, and they've been stripped of the support structure that once helped make other options as viable -- as well as the manpower to implement tactics that don't play expressly to their one massive strength.

[MrRoboto75]

I thought most of the hamstringing happened after the emergence of chaos space marines and such.  The separation of the navy was so if the guard went renegade or whatever, they'd still basically be stuck on one planet.  SM's 1000 headcount was to lessen the impact of a chapter falling to chaos, or at least reign in a chapters sphere of influence so to speak.

[Trekkin]

I thought most of the hamstringing happened after the emergence of chaos space marines and such.  The separation of the navy was so if the guard went renegade or whatever, they'd still basically be stuck on one planet.  SM's 1000 headcount was to lessen the impact of a chapter falling to chaos, or at least reign in a chapters sphere of influence so to speak.

Yep. Both events occurred just after the Heresy.

[nenjin]

Remember how the Great Crusade evolved, though: the original plan was for the Emperor and the Primarchs alone to reconquer the galaxy 21-handedly. That had to be aborted when the Primarchs were lost and the Astartes built to replace them, and then the Emperor determined that they needed the Imperial Army as well -- in part to ameliorate the inevitable shortage of Astartes by providing soldiers for more mundane tasks, yes, but also to run things like heavy artillery and orbital bombardment and sieges and so forth which the Astartes weren't ideally suited to do. Then the splitting of the Army post-Heresy saw most of the Astartes' void capability shuffled into the Navy, leaving them with what are, in truth, gigantic interstellar APCs -- and the splitting of the Astartes into Chapters vastly exacerbated the manpower issues that made the Army necessary in the first place.

So no, the Astartes are not stupid or inflexible by design, but much of their physiology and armory was geared toward making fast frontal assaults as effective as possible, and they've been stripped of the support structure that once helped make other options as viable -- as well as the manpower to implement tactics that don't play expressly to their one massive strength.

Seems fairly ridiculous that the Emperor planned to conquer the entire galaxy with just 22 people, himself included. The fiction has born out that this wouldn't have worked. Primarchs can totally be brought low by non-demigods, and them traveling together it would have taken, I dunno, a few million years to conquer the space the Imperium now occupies.

I know it's canon but it's felt like slightly ridiculous canon. Or in-world historical revisionism. Because there's just no way it would have worked out like that, unless the primarchs were originally supposed to be EVEN MORE badass than they were.

[Xantalos]

I take it that it was supposed to be him and the primarchs leading mortal armies, not literally conquering the stars on their own. The Space Marines were a backup plan after chaos did their deal, since he didn’t know if the primarchs were dead or not.

[Trekkin]

I take it that it was supposed to be him and the primarchs leading mortal armies, not literally conquering the stars on their own. The Space Marines were a backup plan after chaos did their deal, since he didn’t know if the primarchs were dead or not.

The mortal armies were a patch to fix the Emperor's backup plan, when it came to light that the Astartes alone could not retake the galaxy.

His original plan was literally conquering the galaxy with his twenty handmade sons. Yes, this was a ridiculous strategy, even if you suppose that the Primarchs would have turned out better had he been able to raise them himself, but the Emperor never wanted to build and run the Imperium; admin was for little people like Malcador. The Emperor just wanted him and his boys to go on' a good ol' intergalactic killin' spree, largely because he was a bloodthirsty egomaniac.

[Andres]

Is Guilliman an Ultramarine?

[Kot]

Yes and no. He's the Primarch of the Ultramarines, so he is the Ultra Ultramarine.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

A Gigamarine, if you will.

[Egan_BW]

How does someone like Guilliman, who's like ultra-smart and leadery or whatever, fit in with a plan to go murder all the xenos with my 20 mates? Surely he's made for leading an army?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm fairly certain that lore is from before the modern metacanon of 40k got set down, alongside the ranks of Eldar-Human hybrids (never retconned), Space Marines being Guardsmen, Orks being Chavs, Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock, Squat Trains, Female Space Marines, and the Emperor being a mortal inherited title.

Heh, having thought all that out I kind of want to write a "Retroclone 40k" with all the stupid satire shit they sorted out for muh Grimdark and Primarch horoscope readings. That'd make for an interesting game of Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader.

[Kot]

Yah. In current lore, they weren't supposed to all fight alone, they were all supposed to be generals from get-go, although probably initially the Space Marines were supposed to be slightly different and only after the 21 wonder boys got scattered the Legions themselves were more of a rushed project.

[Trekkin]

How does someone like Guilliman, who's like ultra-smart and leadery or whatever, fit in with a plan to go murder all the xenos with my 20 mates? Surely he's made for leading an army?

Who made him a leader? The Emperor, or Konor Guilliman and Tarasha Euten? None of the Primarchs were raised as the Emperor wanted them to be with the partial exception of Horus -- who, incidentally, was named Warmaster instead of Guilliman, despite the latter's obvious administrative and strategic prowess.